Struggling with a lazy 10-year-old - is coding a good idea?

[Joana33]

Hi mums
I have a 10-year-old son who has become quite lazy lately. He spends a lot of time just sitting around or watching screens and does not seem interested in much else. I am trying to find something that will get him more active and involved.

A friend told me that learning coding might be a good idea for kids at this age. It sounds interesting but I am not sure if it would really help. Has anyone here tried this with their child? Did it help them become more focused or motivated?

Would love to hear your thoughts or any ideas that have worked for your kids.

Thanks a lot

Hi there,

I’ve been in a similar situation with my son around the same age. We gave coding a try, and to my surprise, it actually helped.

It gave him something to build and feel proud of like little games or animations.

He became more focused and started using his screen time more purposefully.

Might be worth trying especially if he enjoys puzzles or figuring things out.

Wishing you luck!

Coding is not really of any use now because AI is taking over it - it will be obsolete as a skill soon.
Could you get him a really special Lego set? Maybe make a thing of it - a trip to the Lego store in London, then he could spend his summer building it.
Learn chess online?

Silly comment about coding becoming obsolete. It's like saying there's no point learning your times tables now we have calculators.

Let him.try coding. It could awake an interest in computer science which could lead to a useful hobby or career.

It can help. It can make a kid feel "more in control" of the screen as they can "dictate" results on screen using a computer program.

For the poster who said AI will make coding obsolete, true that 90% of coders will be out of business, but the 10% who will remain will have their pay packets tripled.

Look at the furore at Meta where they are offering pay packages of $100 million to $300 million to AI researchers. Granted that these people have a Math background, but they need to be able to see spaces in multi dimensions and walk through those spaces using coding, there is no other magic which can make this happen but coding. (Yes there are less than 10 people who got such packages, but this is the point, the best 10% out there will rule with the rest 90% gone).

A very simple free introduction would be Logo which has been around for years
https://turtleacademy.com/
But I am sure someone knows of a more exciting up to date application 😀

It doesn't really matter if coding is doesn't lead to a career in the future, if it's a hobby he enjoys then it's worthwhile. No one says you should only learn to play an instrument if it's going to lead to a successful career in 10 years time!

Ds is working as a software engineer and has no current fears that AI will soon be replacing him - he's barely allowed to use it as it's not secure. He got into coding at around 10 which I think is a really good age to start.

Your son probably already uses it at school but DS started out with Scratch, he loved making animated pictures to show us. He was never fussed on Raspberry Pis but you can get some nice kits that make fun things. He moved on from Scratch to Python - it's quite a big jump though from moving around pieces of code to writing your own code and he was reluctant at first but he still uses Python sometimes at work and it's his favourite language now. Once he got the hang of it he never looked back. As a teen he did the Unity Junior Programmer free course - great for making your own games in C#.

MIT Scratch is more "upto" today's standards.

LOGO was(is) wonderful too, but does not have the s3x appeal required today.

Yes get him into it if you can. Coding is a great skill that improves maths, problem solving, creativity - all sorts. There will be plenty of jobs for people with a coding mindset in the future!!!!